Tag Archives: Politics

Ian Hinson and Donald Parkinson take a stab at critiquing the notion of anti-political Marxism.

Marx was not unique in being a socialist; he lived in an era where utopian communalism was actually fairly common. The social question of how best to organize society had been raised and addressed, with arguments for a classless, levelled social order having been made long before Marx. The ideas of socialist revolution can be found in Babeuf. What made Marx and Engels different from all the utopians and “crude socialists” was that they believed the working class must take political action to organize as a class to take power. It must organize to win a better position both economically and politically within capitalism, and eventually strengthen this organization to raise the question of political, or state power, as a whole. Marx took from the Chartists just as much as the Utopian socialists; he recognized that the working class must politically organize. When French “Marxists” argued against fighting for political demands and engaging in elections, he responded by saying “if this is Marxism, I am not a Marxist”.

Despite these historical realities, some Marxists today argue for a form of “anti-political Marxism”. This is found in various ultra left currents like communization, autonomism, and the Gramscians at the blog Left-Flank. What these calls for Marxist “anti-politics” have in common is an argument centered around the notion of “the real movement,” which is based off a quote in the German Ideology. While for Marx the concept was meant to describe that the class struggle comes out of imperfect conditions set by capitalism, for the bloggers at Left Flank the real movement is some “anti-political” movement that arises from civil society against the political sphere itself. Essentially, it is wrong to try and build a socialist movement, but rather one must wait for, and follow the “real movement” with organic ties to civil society. What this approach argues for is essentially what can be understood as economism.

Lenin’s 1901 polemic against the Russian Social Democrats laid bare the theoretical and tactical pitfalls of so called “economism”, a centering of the material elements of the workers movement over the conscious elements. In this article Lenin states:

“In order truly to give “consideration to the material elements of the movement”, one must view them critically, one must be able to point out the dangers and defects of spontaneity and to elevate it to the level of consciousness, To say, however, that ideologists (i.e., politically conscious leaders) cannot divert the movement from the path determined by the interaction of environment and elements is to ignore the simple truth that the conscious element participates in this interaction and in the determination of the path.”

Lenin’s deconstruction of this vulgarized interpretation of the relationship between the material and abstract components of a budding workers movement is useful precisely because it exposes the false dichotomy of the “spontaneous” and “premeditated.” It breaks down the bifurcation of socialist participation, and allows for a synthesis of the working class to respond to the material conditions it grapples with, while recognizing the position that consciousness plays in the direction that a revolution moves. Thus, the position of the socialist in respect to the workers movement is not to internalize a millenarian political armageddon, but to respond to the spontaneous movement of the workers, to augment the movement to one which situates itself in opposition to capital and towards the goal of a post-capitalist, socialist epoch.

Lenin grasps that the class struggle is inherently a political struggle, because it is a struggle for social power. The question of power and what class holds political domination, and in turn the balance of power of these classes and their strength through organization, is what can never be ignored. Economism instead puts the withdrawal of labor at the core of socialist activity, or at least the formation of economic resistance to capital. It sees the political development of socialist organization as reliant on the spontaneous struggle that occurs beforehand, with programme developing from the nature of struggle itself. The programme instead, is logically derived by the objective interests of classes that are always expressed politically when they’re able to have coherence.

Economism presents a narrative where organization is produced through spontaneous action, that first a labor movement must develop, and then socialists will try to merge with it to produce a party. The argument that then follows is that in lack of a labor movement, any kind of socialist political activity is simply going to be channeled into activism and sub-political spectacle. What this doesn’t take into account is that socialism, as a political movement, has historically played an integral role in the labor movement. It was first through socialist political campaigns and concentrated unionization drives that the working class developed a sense of itself as a class, and hence the kind of solidarity that would make large scale strikes possible. It is not necessarily from spontaneous mass strikes that a socialist consciousness develops, but from common association as a class in party. The core myth of economism is that the working class derives its power from the ability to withdraw labor, which is a trade unionist, rather than Marxist notion. Rather, the Marxist theory of class is that the working class develops because it is compelled to commonly politically associate beyond its divisions by its common position of dependence on the general wage fund. The working class derives its power from its need for collective, and therefore mass political solutions.

These same entanglements which cause economism to tail behind the workers movement are the same obstacles that plague so called “anti-politics.” While what is said to be “anti-politics” is rather enigmatic and elusive, the political blog “Left-Flank” breaks them down into essentially 3 points:

A widespread mood among ordinary people related to Gramsci’s description of “detachment”. This can manifest in spontaneous popular outbursts or be reflected in volatile electoral results, but tends to peter out if not given some kind of direction.

A political strategy by sections (or aspiring sections) of the political class, drawing on this mood for support. There are lots of variants on this, not confined to Left or Right:

A consistent strategy of social revolution, which seeks to concretely intervene on the effective terrain in order to build a movement that overcomes politics by overcoming the state.

What is outlined in the above 3 points, though, is not a wave of “anti-politics,” but a reaction to the failure of the neoliberal project, which still takes place explicitly in the space of the political. What then follows is an attempt to extrapolate a wider trend towards populism as a retrogression into an aggregate depoliticization, or worse, to credit politically incoherent populist waves with a “consistent strategy of social revolution.” Not only is this malapropism a misreading of the current state of global politics, but it leads to prescriptive measures in the vein of a mass political exodus into strictly “social” forms of organization and anti-capital based action. This rejection of participation in the political spheres of influence, and the focalization of a specific demesne leaves open a vacuum which bourgeois politics are able to occupy. It’s this analysis of the ontology of the working class as not operating within the political or ideological sphere, and only the social(in relation to anti-politics) or the material(in relation to economism) which causes these one-dimensional tactical modes to ultimately preclude any sort of influence throughout the movement, and to lag behind the workers movement as less of a participator, or a co-conspirator, but as solely a spectator.

The consistent strategy of social revolution that Left-Flank sees developing, which seeks to overcome politics and overcome the state, is a reference to the types of “movements without ideologies or demands” that spontaneously rise against the state. The Arab Spring is touted as a model for these “movements of squares” that arose in Greece, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine. There is a tendency to see the refusal of these movements to pose concrete political solutions as something liberatory in itself, and imagines a society in a state of permanent mobilization tearing down mediations that cannot be realistically continued to a conclusion. These movements of course are not “anti-political” regardless of what they claim because ultimately they feed into the machinery of the existing political forces. The hope of a movement against politics itself is an anarchist fantasy that was wiped away with the Paris Commune, which showed that the working class could only address the social question by achieving political dominance.

The truth is that this strategy reflects the ideological dominance of the petty-bourgeoisie, who are against the state but do not represent a positive class interest as an alternative. The nature of these movements, as amorphous and non-political, speaks to their class incoherence and their ability to “negate” the existing order, but not actually change it. They are simple screams in public for change from the petty-bourgeoisie, but tend to organize around a demand of anti-corruption. Anti-corruption demands are very dangerous, and can very easily play into an in-group/out-group mentality of the “good citizen” against “corrupt outsiders” that deforms class reproduction. Left-Flank deny that anti-political tendencies will lead to right wing outcomes, when there really is no reason to think this. Anti-politics has no coherence; it only stands against the state and negates its authority, but ultimately takes for granted its existence.

“Furedi argues: “The radical supporters of anti-politics overlook that the flipside of anti-politics is TINA — an acceptance of the world as it is. For without politics people are reduced to passive objects, shaped by fate.” He gives no sense that social forces are needed to profoundly change society, and that political activity underpinned by social passivity simply reproduces the current malaise. Hence he collapses into a tired and unconvincing call for a “battle of ideas” for the values he prefers. More bizarrely he claims that the deadweight of institutions like “schools, universities, popular culture, the media” is more powerful than the countercultural populist surge. Perhaps that argument would’ve rung true 30 years ago, but if the Brexit and Trump votes showed anything it was a lack of deference to the expertise and cultural authority of “schools, universities, popular culture, the media” that was in operation — a fact Furedi acknowledges but quickly forgets.”

While a lot of this is true, that social deference to expertise has been declining, and that political activity predicated on passivity simply reproduces the problematics of the current social order, it attempts to disassociate participation in the social and political realms, as if they function in mutually exclusive domains. The functional goal of participation in politics for the revolutionary is specifically to bring to light the utter ineptitude of bourgeois politics, and in turn present an alternative towards liberation. In this sense we can defer back to US Marxist Hal Draper on the role that politics play within the movement: “The working class (unlike the bourgeoisie) cannot inseminate its own system of economic power within the old one, thereby establishing a plateau of power from which to gain the political heights. The order necessarily is the reverse. The working class–through the organization of its political movement, like every other aspiring class–must first conquer political power and then begin the process of socio economic transformation. For the bourgeoisie, political power was finally plucked as the ripe or overripe fruit of its socio economic power, its power as a possessing class. For the working class, political power is needed as the engine with which to bring a new social order into existence.”This delineation of the role that working class politics play in overcoming capitalism is important in that it stresses the interwoven relationship of the base and superstructure. Contrary to Gramsci’s (who Left-Flank seems to take much inspiration from) conception of a “cultural hegemony,” Draper demonstrates the bottleneck that bourgeois politics play in supplementing and monopolizing a more universal hegemony, and it is only through the working class seizure and occupation of the political, social, and economic strata that this monopolization can be reversed. Hegemony is fought through counter-hegemony, which for the working class must be collective and in its highest form proposes an alternative form of governance, and therefore grasp with the political.

The dangers of this sort of fetishization for purely “social” forms of organizing/movementism, is that the real world application of its praxis has historically resulted in a spontaneous, unorganized, and premature causatum of failure. Despite romantic nostalgias for outbursts such as May 68, these “purely social” spasms aren’t able to structure or restructure themselves into an organized movement with a coherent purpose, and are either absorbed and subsumed back into the bourgeois spectacle or crushed underneath the boot of capital. The reason for this is not because of the interminability of capitalism, but because peripheral strategic forms are unable to capture the totalization that the bourgeoisie has over the structures of social power. Only the patient construction of social and political force, the working class and its party, can come to challenge the totalizing domination that the bourgeois holds over society, not just economically, but politically and ideologically.

The social conditions that created “anti-politics” as a widespread force amongst the working class are a product of material circumstances. However, the argument of Marxism is that our material circumstances are rooted in socially and historically defined conditions that are based on social relations which result from the processes of collective human action. By acting collectively, humans can change these material circumstances, and therefore develop a new mode of production itself, socialism. So rather than tailing anti-political sentiment that spontaneously develops from an atomized existence in neo-liberal capitalism, we must go against the spontaneous consciousness, as Lenin urges us in What Is To Be Done. We must fight collectively against the material conditions that make anti-politics dominant.

The development of revolutionary strategy grounded in the material conditions of today is a much needed task that all socialists should be willing to partake in, but the process of this conceptualization has to take into account the forces of all spheres of power and influence, as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is not simply confined to the material, or social, but to life in its totality. This doesn’t mean that we indulge in the “tagtail” of bourgeois parties, as Engels said, but what it does mean is that we take a principled universalist approach to overcoming the universalist system of oppression and exploitation of capitalism and bourgeois society as whole.

This statement reflects the general views and positions of the Communist League of Tampa.

“Death to Imperialism!”

We, the Communist League of Tampa, resolutely oppose the recent attacks on Syria that have united the Democratic and Republican war-machine. An attack on the people of Syria is an attack on our fellow citizens of the world and must be opposed for that reason alone. US intervention has always increased civilian deaths and instability, as it will be done on the terms of the financiers and industrialists who rule our government and carve the world into spheres to plunder for financial profits. The capitalist class has decided once and for all that Trump is fit to rule the US now that he has given up his isolationist pretensions. In their sick eyes this has made him truly “presidential.” Yet Trump is merely falling in line with the needs of the ruling capitalist class, staying true to the legacy of US dominance and hegemony over less developed nations. This is of course no surprise; Trump never once represented the interests of working people.

Of course the recent attacks in Syria are not a break in US foreign policy, as intervention through proxies has been the norm for quite some time. The ideology of American exceptionalism tells the public our bombs are for democracy, giving consistent US presence in the Middle East a “humanitarian guise”. However, the very notion that one nation has an inherent right to rule another is anti-democratic at the core. While US crimes against the people of Syria are nothing new, a full on attack against Assad escalates this conflict to a new level and shows increased imperialist tensions that are against the interests of humanity.

Imperialism is inherent to the global system of capital accumulation, based on the competitiveness of firms and military rivalries of nation-states. For the sake of commerce the bourgeoisie wants to maintain a relative peace, but the permanent crisis of capitalism drives nation-states into military competitions that can explode into all out war. Capitalist overproduction has led to a lack of profitable markets, and nothing works better for businesses interests than war. This conflict is not a mere matter of politician’s decisions but a symptom of an inhumane economic system.

Therefore imperialism, a crisis of capitalism, cannot be opposed by supporting one capitalist state against another. Hence, while the main enemy is at home, we reject any position that grants Assad political support of any kind. We call for a ‘third front’ of the democratic working class to develop an opposition to the Assadist regime, US Imperialism, and reactionary Jihadists. We support any efforts that promote the development of such a front.

To make concrete action against the war we must challenge the very system that props up imperialism. Those in the armed forces should take whatever action is possible to resist the war, up to and including mutiny against officers. We also demand unconditional support and citizenship for Syrian refugees. Workers in war production should do what they can to sabotage the military industrial complex. Nationalism and militarism can only be defeated with proletarian internationalism. No War Between Nations, No Peace Between Classes!

The victory of the Trump campaign, and the catapultic rise of the alt-right movement from the shadows of the internet into the mainstream political paradigm, has stimulated a mobilization of opposition, and an immediate call to action. However, the specter of performative activism and pseudo-outrage continues to blur the lines between genuine action and specious placation.

As noted in Internationale Situationniste #9, the S.I. appropriately identified the neutralization of revolutionary strategies, concepts, and images, for the purpose of emptying them of their subversive content, thus making them compatible with mainstream, bourgeois culture. They formulated this process under the concept of recuperation. Media culture absorbs and diffuses radical ideas as a way to create a homogeneous plane of discourse, in which even the most mutinous of societal critiques are brought under the dominant space of acceptable discussion. In doing so, not only are the proponents of these revolutionary concepts forced to struggle for control over their own definitions, but the revolutionaries themselves are effectively dragged into the realm of their own repurposed concepts, in an attempt to retain coherency and an ideological relation to the general public. The S.I. go on to point out a few notable examples of this process of recuperation:

From Khrushchev to the priests, socialism as a concept has been given the richest variety of contradictory meanings ever consolidated in one single word. Unions have undergone such transformations that at this point the most effective strikes are those organized by the members of the privileged classes, as evidenced by the Belgian doctors this year. Not even anarchy has been spared, as one can tell from the “anarchist opinions” of the pro-Chinese Mr Siné and, even more so, by the anarchist opinions of Le Monde libertaire.¹

Acting in accordance with capital’s need to exert its dominion over nature, it also extends its domination over the domain of language, and over the realm of acceptable expressions of outrage. One needn’t look any further than the outpouring of protests and demonstrations which have materialized over the past few weeks for an example of this subsumption of the limits of radical outrage, with millions participating across the globe in a show of solidarity to those affronted over the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump. Multiple sources have stated that the “Women’s March” in particular, was the largest demonstration in Washington DC’s history, and while the ability to organize such a massive gathering of bodies is quite impressive, one must ask how effective this demonstration actually was at conveying its message. Moreover, what exactly is the praxis of these types of demonstrations, and why were the small glimpses of authentic outrage so universally condemned by the media, and similarly by the liberal stratum who made up the majority of the protest’s population? To put it simply, liberal activism can be described as that of an empty signifier, that is to say, it acts as an imitation of the radical activism in which it seeks to replace. It creates a stage for the general public to try on the mask of the political radical, while at the same time allowing for the members of the privileged classes to direct this performance by redefining what radical action actually looks like.The political radical in the sphere of mainstream discourse is no longer the black bloc creating a cacophony of kindled police mobiles and broken windows. The political radical has been recodified as the football star who kneels during the national anthem, or the movie star who gives an apathetic, detached speech during an awards show. The political radical no longer sees action as an instrument to realize systematic change, action is reduced down to means with no end, where the demonstration is a statement and nothing more.

Herbert Marcuse discusses the disarming of political action in his essay Repressive Tolerance:

Thus, within a repressive society, even progressive movements threaten to turn into their opposite to the degree to which they accept the rules of the game. To take a most controversial case: the exercise of political rights (such as voting, letter-writing to the press, to Senators, etc., protest-demonstrations with a priori renunciation of counter-violence) in a society of total administration serves to strengthen this administration by testifying to the existence of democratic liberties which, in reality, have changed their content and lost their effectiveness. In such a case, freedom (of opinion, of assembly, of speech) becomes an instrument for absolving servitude.²

What Marcuse sets out to illuminate in this analysis is not only the ineffectiveness of bourgeois activism to actualize systemic change, but also how this type of activism is metamorphosed into action which exculpates the oppressive class for their exploitation. Opposition via political activity reconciles itself with the status quo through its own existence. It contains itself within the limitations of the very system it seems to resist. “It is the people who tolerate the government, which in turn tolerates opposition withinthe framework determined by the constituted authorities.” It is thus apparent that the dominant forms of activism represent not a subversive expression of dissent, but as an implicit consent to be governed.

Engagement in activism constitutes an intervention within the space where politics and everyday life intersect. In this way it reflects the totalitarian nature of a democratic society, which controls the totality of life by appearing as the controlled object. In reality, of course, it is the individual whose life becomes co-opted by the machinery of the state through their own supposed participation in its process. This is the principal contradiction that the modern activist continuously and quixotically struggles to overcome. The politicization of human affairs is a component of the greater social phenomenon of alienation, as people act to strip themselves of autonomy through ritualized self-exploitation.

Politics function to a great extent on an abstract level, an intangible expression of the tangible violence of the state. It is a representational system, distorting images of the world by design. The public discourse that arises from this system is a reflection of a reflection, a second degree of non-reality. The rupture of this elaborate funhouse is seen through an act of physical violence, a refusal to engage in the maddening “dialogues” that form the basis of the mainstream consensus. With continued complacency, and an acceptance of this image of reality, that image becomes actualized. This series of relationships and social processes that constitute this spectacular construction becomes the manifestation of reality itself because it is understood that it is the totality of observable reality. The mystification of these spectacular aspects place them at the center of the social world. Guy Debord examined this phenomenon in his Society of the Spectacle:

The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of unification. As a part of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all gazing and all consciousness. Due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of generalized separation.³

We can see that this mask obstructs a clear view of the reality of society. The “politeness” of modern governance works to produce a societal consensus, one which inverts the truth of objective conditions by presenting helplessness as autonomy, coercion as accord. The maintenance of this phenomenological project is one of the most pressing issues of late capitalist modernity, as the intensification of crisis creates fissures in the objectified worldview.

It is this consensus which the activist, consciously or unconsciously, seeks to reproduce and perpetuate. Activism, as a by-product of capitalist democracy, is the art of manufacturing appearances. What is more important is to display anger, to compress it into a viewable form, rather than to actually act upon it. In the age of social media, this spectacular method can be virtualized and magnified, further diluting whatever emotional message was originally embedded. Activism is both an asocial and social affair, generating crowds that perform mechanistic demonstrations of indignation, brought together by an empty non-message. The deception of such crowds is that they are not so much crowds, but collections of individuals who are more focused on transmitting expressions of false personal investment to each other. The protester does not march towards any specific goal, but to engage in the act of marching itself. Expressive activism (protest politics) is the realization of the theater-form within our social world.

Consider the broken window, universally condemned as a product of “senseless violence”. Destroying a window attacks an ideological barrier as well as a physical one. The normative discourse of our society is one of simulated inaction, concealing brutality within pacifistic rhetoric. To subvert this false language and reveal its true nature is to speak the more “primitive” tongue of physicality. The burning limo and the smashed shopfront are not de-rationalized because they accomplish nothing, in fact the very opposite is true. They symbolize a death of passivity, posing an existential threat to the political mindset. This is why the puppets of the old order must denounce them as acts of insanity.

The limits of rational activity within a sphere of society are set according to the dominant narrative at play. For this reason, riots are depicted as the wrong way to dissent, that is to say, actualized resistance is an improper form of resistance. Violence is not sophisticated, they proclaim, the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword and so on. Once again, this returns to the very simple contradiction of democratic governance, that of representation versus content. Such a system can only survive by embracing its own contradiction, pursuing violence with greater theatrical flair, the imposition of a terroristic peace. Activism is only an expression of helplessness in the face of this terrible force. The ideological constraints reproduced by the activist are a consequence of state power, and only reinforce it, despite appearances.. As such, political performance is an expression of the cyclical nature of society’s administration. The perpetuation of the democratic ideology allows exploitative relations to produce the conditions for such an ideology to take root.

To point out the danger explicit violence poses to this system is not to say that the fracturing of a sheet of glass is such a momentous occasion. Breaking a window does not blow away the millions of police and soldiers and all their guns. Such an act does not practically undermine the state any more than a peaceful march does. Political violence faces the same problem that political debate does. The attempt to exert pressure and to force demands onto such a powerful entity is like screaming into a deaf ear.

It is violence as a form of action, in its movement beyond structure and symbolism, that threatens the present order. It bypasses the activist’s struggle to overcome the contradiction of their own work, and lays bare the foundations of the capitalist state. Beyond the political, lies the potential for a reconstitution of the human, if only we can cease to reproduce the conditions of our own oppression. It is only when it tries to overcome the state, rather than shape it, that any sort of resistance transforms itself into revolution.

References

[1] “Words and Those Who Use Them” Situationist International Online. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.

The day that deep down we all knew was coming is here. Hillary Clinton is officially the Democratic nominee and Bernie has given her his full throated endorsement. This article will not be an “I told you so” or an attempt to rub salt in the wounds of of those who passionately felt the Bern and who now only feel burned. Frankly Bernie exceeded my admittedly low expectations. I think at points he may have even made a self satisfied and complacent Clinton camp sweat. Even this cynical anarchist was excited that so many people were actually open to the idea of socialism, however ill defined their idea of it may have been. At the very least it seemed possible that Bernie and his surprisingly passionate supporters might drag the Democrats, kicking and screaming, to the left. Alas, even that seems not be. The rightwing of the party appears ascendent and will likely continue to be.

Why would this be? Bernie ran as good a campaign as one has any right to expect. He delivered into the Democratic fold loads of previously disaffected or apathetic voters that could, at least through sheer force of numbers, pull the party to the left. But of course that’s not how the major political parties work in America. The Democrats will condescend to these people, take their money and their votes, but give those wackos real influence? Lol, no thanks.

To understand why the Democrats can burn the Berners and expect to get away with it we need to look at the Republican party. The rise of Trump and his anti-free trade nativism has alienated major business constituencies. In the last fundraising period Hillary raised some $40 million, compared to Trump’s paltry $3 million. Wall Street and Silicon Valley, generally Democratic leaning anyway, have lined up behind Hillary even more solidly than usual, the eccentric Peter Thiel notwithstanding. More worrying to Republican bean counters, the Chamber of Commerce, normally a stalwartly Republican pile of money, has been openly flirting with the Democrats. Most spectacular though is the Koch Brothers who are tacitly backing Clinton. With them goes not only their money, but the money of a whole clique of douchey one percenters that the Kochs would normally funnel into Republican coffers.

Much of the money diverted from Republican pockets will find its way into Democratic ones. Bill Clinton is infamous for having flipped Wall Street and getting this previously Republican constituency to mostly line up behind his “New Democrats.” The Clintons no doubt view this as a golden opportunity to do the same thing on an even grander scale. You better believe that the Democratic establishment is going to do everything it can to get its hands on every last red cent possible. If that means kowtowing even more forcefully to business interests than so be it.

Thus the logic of the Tim Kaine VP pick presents itself. At first blush the pick of a conservative blue dog Democrat for Vice President seems jarringly tone deaf in a year defined by populist insurgency. Tim Kaine, in addition to having the charisma of a stranger that wants to talk to you about Jesus, is on the right of the party on labor issues, on trade deals, on the banks, on and on. He even sucks on abortion, which is probably the best reason to vote Democrat. With this pick Hillary and the Dems are saying to the monied interests “ignore all that Bernie break up the banks bull, the Democrats are ready to be the partner of business in government.” they will tell the public that this pick was made to shore up support in newly purple Virginia, or bolster the ticket’s national security cred, as though anyone has ever cared about what congressional committee Tim Kaine has sat on. Make no mistake; the Tim Kaine is an olive branch to business interests potentially alienated by Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric and a slap in the face to the progressive wing of the party, a normally impotent force which has suddenly become activated. For the first time in my life the progressives within the party have not just relevancy but actual power. The Democratic machine will do everything it can to co-opt and undermine that power.

The Democratic establishment has attempted to buy off the the progressives with, and Sanders has justified selling out to Clinton by pointing to, the party platform which is being called the most progressive in history. Now, party platforms are meaningless documents which as a rule are ignored and forgotten almost immediately and play basically no role in governing, so excuse me if I’m not super impressed by this concession. Sanders claims he and his people are going to use it to hold Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment accountable, but it’s not clear to me how he could actually do this. Once the election ends so to will Sanders’ leverage. If the Democrats win then they don’t need Sanders and his people anymore. Flushed with corporate cash and with favors to repay they’ll do whatever they like in the lame duck session and the carping of the few congressional progressives won’t matter much. If they lose then Sanders makes for an easy scapegoat; all his demands are discredited and unimplementable anyway. A progressive party platform is a patronizing ploy to get progressives to partner up with a candidate that views them as a tiresome annoyance.

The current plight of the liberal left show that electoralism, at least within the Democratic party, is a dead end. The best thing the liberal left can do now is bolt and try to build political power independent and defiant of the Democrats. Sanders, and in his own inverted way Trump, has shown that there is a political appetite for something outside the neoliberal consensus. Perhaps in spite of himself, Sanders has created a historic opportunity to break with the Democratic party. This opportunity will not likely present itself again in 4 years, as party bosses will be on the lookout for it and take measures against it. What progressives in the Democratic party must understand is that the party establishment would much rather be partners with corporate power brokers than with its own progressive wing. So long as they remain within the Democratic machine progressives will remain junior partners with little influence. Despite the painful promise wrought by the Sanders campaign, as the Democratic party takes advantage of the Trump fiasco to cozy up even closer to business the situation for progressives inside the party will only get worse.